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Story:Specific Impulse
The fourth Zeth story. There is an end and a beginning. This story is effectively the direct sequel to Delta V, so if you have not read that you will probably be worse off. Prologue The very bright craft now pulled away from the wreck of the Unity. The shell of the frigate, now empty of people, tumbled off into space, nothing more than a shell of titanium, a speck in the uncaring void. Leaving the shrinking wreck behind, the rocket accelerated away, heading deeper into the system. Its engine was ablaze with furious white light, a cone of opaque brightness, that dwarfed the vessel itself, a rocket-shaped machine with long radiators, glowing red-hot, extending from its hull. Down the side of the ship could be read: 'XSS ?'- the ship was nameless and unknown, still shooting through the interplanetary gulf and blasting plasma outwards from its exhaust nozzle. Its armour was a pale silver that glinted in the starlight, though these tiny pulses of light were invisible against the terrifying exhaust behind them. In its side was an airlock, and a mechanical arm that was now folded against its side. Twenty-one hours to the destination. Chapter One Irnos awoke with a pounding headache. He groaned and pulled looked up, rubbing his eyes, and then did a double-take at the surroundings. They were in an airlock, that was for sure. But it wasn't that of any ordinary XSF ship- this room was painted completely black, with only a frame of metal around the bulkhead on each side of the airlock. An incandescent lightbulb hovered above them, attached firmly to the ceiling, casting a gentle light over them. He tried to get up, but he couldn't. His hands and feet responded, and so did his head, but they all felt heavy and he could not push himself up. Drugs? Or... "Rena?" The other Zeth lay beside him, still asleep. Her chest rose and fell slowly, and her breaths were quiet. Very quiet. He reached out, painfully, with his hand, and nudged her. She made a noise, but didn't wake up. Alright. Irnos vaguely remembered something about a method to get up from the floor while weakened- he turned onto his side and pushed up with his elbow, rolling onto his front with his hands supporting him. He then brought his feet forwards and pushed with his hands, sending him upright. He felt like he was carrying someone piggyback- the force on his shoulders, head, and feet was unpleasant, to say the least. Afraid to reach down in case he fell again, he crouched by Rena and tapped her on the shoulder. She woke with a start, wide-eyed, and seemed relieved when she saw Irnos there. Then she noticed the room, and tried to get up onto her hands, but fell back down. "Come on, I'll help." He took her under the arms and pulled her slowly, painfully, up onto her feet. She winced as the full force was felt on her body. "Where are we?" "I don't know. Not like any airlock I ever saw." He walked cautiously over to the inner bulkhead and knocked on it twice. It rung loudly for a second and then died away. "But I'll bet that we could find answers on the other side of that door." She nodded, and came slowly over. "So how do we get it open?" "There's no wheel, or switch, or key slot. What's the point of a ship if you can't get in?" They stared at the bulkhead, and it was as if it stared back- a black oblong, with curved edges, that rang to the touch. It was bare of latches or symbols or any kind of feature- just black in silver. Then, there was a grinding sound, and the door began to swing open. Chapter Two The first thing they noticed as they stepped through into the main body of the ship was its emptiness. The walls were all steel, though the floor and ceiling were padded. There was a hatch leading upwards, but not one down- if this ship followed normal XSF styles, then that would mean they could enter astrogation, and that they were currently in the loading/unloading bay. "I'm not sure I want to climb that ladder right now." "Me neither." Irnos sighed. "But there's nothing to be seen in this room." He headed over to the rungs and began to climb upwards, as Rena watched from below. Each step was unpleasant and he gritted his three mandibles together as he moved upwards. Finally, he reached the hatch and pushed it open. Hauling himself into the room, he beckoned for Rena to head up after him. This room was not as bare as the last- there was a telescope screen, currently showing Cedris, and a small box of food and water. He looked at the food and was surprised, as he hadn't seen proper, unprocessed fruit in several years. He didn't think they were even allowed to have such luxuries on spacecraft, but then again, this didn't seem to be any normal spaceship. There was something else- a sheet of paper, with an image of a rocket on it. Irnos guessed that it was the rocket they were on, but there was no name and there were no labels on the page. It possessed peculiar size, though, and used an internal fuel storage system. He looked at the design with growing alarm, as he had seen something like it before. "No wonder this ship's sustaining a two gee burn." "What do you mean?" He tapped the image. "We hadn't even built a prototype, or tested this kind of ship before. But we're inside one! Someone thinks us important enough to send their only NSWR to rescue us!" He grinned at her. "NSWR?" He frowned. "Nuclear salt water rocket. You've never heard of it?" "Never." "Ah. Hm. Well- you know the two attributes we look at when choosing a engine for a ship? Other than buildability and cost, of course." "Uh... thrust?" "That's one. And the other?" "I don't know." "Specific impulse. The force per kilo of fuel used per unit time. Most drives have either high thrust and low specific impulse, like solid-fuel, liquid-fuel, and the solid-core NTR we use in space, or high specific impulse and very low thrust, such as an ion or photon drive. There are only a very few designs which have both, and the NSWR is one of those." "How does it work?" "A two-percent solution of uranium tetrabromide in water. The enrichment of the uranium can vary, but I would guess this ship would have 90% enriched. To prevent a critical mass from accumulating, the water is seperated by boron carbide, set wide apart. The fluid is then pumped into a detonation chamber and-" "A nuclear explosion?" "Precisely. Runaway fission occurring in the exhaust nozzle. A continuous nuclear explosion driving the ship along." "Is that... sane?" "As long as the propellant flow is limited and there's a good shadow shield, it should be fine. This kind of vessel can produce about thirteen million newtons of thrust, and a ship with a mass ratio of ten could reach three-point-six-three percent of light speed. I would guess that this ship has a mass ratio of twenty, so its delta V would be about..." He thought for a few moments. "Four point five percent, or thereabouts. Fourteen thousand kilometres per second." "That's fast." "Yeah. The most powerful continuous-thrust nuclear rocket that we know of." "And this is one of those? They built one and sent it out here without anyone knowing?" "Impossible. An NSWR taking off from a planet would completely destroy the area for many kilometres around during blast-off, give everyone with a few hundred kilometres radiation poisoning, and leave fallout that would persist at toxic levels for decades. This ship must have been assembled in space- I'd guess out here, in the belt." "How?" "Well, refined metals could be flown in, piece by piece, by miners and patrol ships. There's ice around here already, mainly from dead comets, for the fuel. It must have cost a very large amount of money- far too much to go unnoticed." "Why would they invest in this kind of ship, when from what we heard the enemy fleet has already been completely wiped out?" "I don't know. But I suspect we'll find out when we get back to Aiston." Chapter Three Irnos idly took a bite from a garfruit and then turned back to the telescope monitor, watching Cedris from about nine light-minutes away. An enormous ball of burning plasma, throwing out more than enough energy to heat all Aiston's oceans to boiling every two seconds. In just over a minute, it would produce enough energy to melt Aiston's crust completely. All that power... The rocket he sat in produced about one terawatt of 'power'. The Republic of Xelass consumed about thirty terawatts, during peacetime. The Unity had produced only around thirty gigawatts of power, being basically a very big nuclear reactor. Cedris produced over 4E26 watts, or 400 yottawatts. So little of that was used... The ?'' powered on towards its star. Its trajectory was such that Cedris would be near enough directly behind Aiston when it reached the planet. Irnos estimated that they had about twenty hours before the ship turned around to begin deceleration and place itself in orbit around the planet, if it had been programmed for that. It was doing a two-gee acceleration. That was impressive in itself. Having been in low-gee and microgravity for the past few days, it had hit the two Zeth on board worse than it should have done. He wondered idly why it had to employ this kind of power, but ceased after a few moments. If this kind of ship got into mass-production, then perhaps the interstellar dream could be achieved. For the Zeth to conquer the stars... It made him grin to think about the rocket. It was, at the end of the day, a nuclear flamethrower of flaming radioactive death shooting through the sky. He imagined battles where there were no guns, just NSWRs attempting to move their exhaust in front of the foe's shadow shield and irradiate the enemy to death from kilometres away. Not probable, given that lasers had a far greater range, but an interesting thought. Rena sat beside him, drinking from a flask. "What're you thinking about?" He asked. "Oh, you know. Home." "I'm interested." "Oh, it's just home. Nothing interesting." "Tell me anyway. What's it like?" She smiled faintly. "Well, I live on Ubarun. Not in the city, but on the coast. Dad manages a krofish farm, which is one of the biggest of its kind in Xelass." "You're rich, then?" "Hmm... kind of. Not banker-rich or technology-rich, but we're well off, I suppose." "Hm." "Mum's part of the company, too- they met through it. She's an accountant. I have an older sister and two younger brothers. My sister works in advertising, though she's been promised a place high-up in Dad's company when he gets too old. Both my brothers want to join the army, but they're too young right now." "So why the XSF?" "Same reason as you, I guess. Space exploration, heroic rescues, and..." She looked at him. "Romance, too." "Yeah." He smiled. "What more could you want?" "But anyway, Irnos, tell me about you." He shrugged weakly. "There's not much to say. Dad's gone, and Mum works at a particle accelerator." As Rena was just about to reply, the monitor beeped, and its speaker came online. A familiar voice echoed through the room. "So, then, what do you think of our new spaceship?" Chapter Four They both turned to look at the speaker. "Why did you pick us up? You said we'd die, and that what we knew would never be allowed to escape!" At this distance, there were going to be around seven minutes of light delay, so over fourteen minutes for a response. Irnos continued to glare at the speaker, his face twisted in anger. "That's still true. You're still going to die." It sounded uninterested. "How, then?" They had to wait again, still angry. "This vessel is set on a course. It will soon begin accelerating at five gees, and will reach a velocity of 1765 kilometres per second. It will take twenty and a half hours to reach Aiston. It will then impact Aiston." Irnos drew back, eyes wide. "''Fuck!" "Why?" Rena looked bemused. "Just to kill us?" Irnos turned to her. "Remember that all nukes are intercepted? Neither side has any way of doing massive damage to the other, right?" "Yeah." "Not any more. This ship is a kinetic weapon. It cannot be stopped, intercepted, or evaded. Yet it will have an impact energy of over two gigatons of TNT, and will still have fuel left over." "What does the fuel do?" "Firstly, fission. This won't release as much energy as the impact, but it will release enough radiation to sterilise anything not killed by the impact's thermal radiation near to the crash site. It will also leave fallout which will spread over the continent and create a dead zone throughout the centre of the CPR. I would also bet that the ship contains tanks of cobalt-60 and sodium-23- you've heard of a salted bomb?" "Yeah?" "This is a salted rocket. Everything within hundreds of kilometres will die. I also guess that there would be multiple EMPs- first, a high-altitude one during entry, and high-altitude EMPs are far more devastating than ground-level ones, and then secondly those during descent, and then thirdly that after runaway fission on impact. It's unlikely that anything would survive to be affected, though." "That's..." "It's fucked up. This whole idea is fucked up. Xelass is fucked up." "Yeah..." She swallowed. The acceleration gravity began to build. "They're shifting to a five-gee burn. Lie on your back, supine. It lets your body cope." They did so. "We're going to have to lie like this for twenty hours?" "Er, until I can think of an escape plan." "Riiight." "If we jumped out, we'd act like little kinetic weapons ourselves, but not big enough to survive entry. We'd explode in the atmosphere about 150km up and then the faintly red mist would disperse through the atmosphere." "Oh. Any other options?" "I'm thinking." Chapter Five He lay there, completely still, as the five-gee acceleration gravity pressed down on him and the stars sat, static, in the telescope monitor. Cedris sat at their centre- a shining orb, glorious in its brightness, watching from the centre of the solar system. The speakers received another message, relaying it into the cabin. It was the same self-satisfied, amused, and familiar voice. "Not long to go, you two. Perhaps you should spend these last few hours contemplating your death and what it will mean to you- if you accept that it's coming, I'm told, it's much easier. By the way, your families think you died after that missile went off, so you don't have to wonder how they'll react. They're doing it right now." Irnos scowled upwards. "I wish he'd shut up." Rena let out a deep breath. "Yeah." "It's bad enough that we're about do die without some bureaucrat going all philosophical on us from ten light-minutes away. Why can't he just leave us be? Does he actually think we'll be able to do anything?" "I dunno. Perhaps he's just psychotic like that. There are enough around." "So why doesn't he go back to whatever psychos do? What's so interesting about two people you can't even see dying?" "Maybe it's because you said nasty things about him, or he just doesn't like us." "I'd bet that he doesn't like anyone, and no-one likes him." "Are you being a little childish, Irnos?" "Childish?! I'm not trying to commit fucking genocide!" She sighed. "Yeah. Sorry." He looked at her. "No. It's fine. Sorry." Another painful movement, and he was looking back up at the ceiling. It looked much further away than it had before- a distant black surface, unreachable, teasing. Perhaps the gravity was getting to him. "I can't think of many ways that this could get worse." "We could be being constantly electrocuted." She suggested helpfully. "Well, okay, but you know what I mean." "Yeah." "I find myself just kind of wanting it over and done with. Enough waiting and thinking- I want that instant death he promised. The threat of death is worse than the thing itself." He laughed, but it came out more like a gurgle. "Crap. Zeth aren't adapted to lie on their backs for hours under five gee." "What's the best possible thing that could happen to us?" "The ship turns round and decelerates the rest of the way there. Either that or it is diverted off course and swings back round into Aiston's orbit. I'm not holding out any hope for those, though." "What are you holding out for, then?" He smiled weakly. "You, I guess. I wouldn't want you to be vaporised alone." "I appreciate that." She touched his hand. "Keep up the fight." Chapter Five Point Five Distant, remote, alone. Frozen, immobile, unable to speak. Eyes open as wide as they can, looking for a spark in the darkness. Ears trained and listening for the sounds. Might it be today? Subprocess receives stimulus. Stimulus converted to electrical signal, it heads to the mind. Stimulus is recognised. Mind is now aware. SIGNATURE OF NUCLEAR SALT WATER ROCKET Today. Signs unmistakable. Time has come and I am ready. Getting up and loading up and there is a long voyage ahead. SIGNATURE OF NUCLEAR SALT WATER ROCKET Tipping-point reached. Could not have foreseen my coming. Break the icy shackles and be honest to yourself. I have a purpose. SIGNATURE OF NUCLEAR SALT WATER ROCKET I'm coming. Chapter Six The rocket continued on its furious acceleration, along the empty and star-lit road to obliteration. Trailing nuclear flame and vast quantities of ionising radiation, it powered on towards Aiston, and towards killing billions of Zeth. Billions of Zeth with names and worries and love and passion and memories and families and children and that spark that is named sapience. With each, the world would lose so much. But there was nothing Irnos could do to stop it- there was nothing anyone could do to stop it, now. It was too late to turn around halfway because the halfway point had been crossed. He ignored his hunger and his thirst, his groaning stomach and his dry throat. He couldn't sate them. He was powerless against the forces that he had to stop, and the knowledge of his insignificance and uselessness stung worse than any physical wound. Maybe that was why the control officer was so interested. He might just want to hear them as they lost what was left of their hope and they discovered just how small they really were. But he was going to be disappointed; Irnos was determined about that. Looking at the image of Cedris once more, he considered the universe. It was a pretty scary place, sure. But it was also his home. And if you were afraid of home, then could you ever rest? Perhaps that was why so many wanted to go to the stars. They were too scared of where they came from. And very soon, Aiston would be an even scarier place, as a kinetic-kill weapon shot down from the stars and reduced a whole country to radioactive, smoking rubble. Rena stirred. "What do you think Xelass will do, after the destruction of the CPR?" "Occupy the territories that belonged to the Kassic Empire. Keep building, keep growing. Advance and eventually reach the stars." He sighed. "The future so many of us were waiting for. But they're creating it through genocide. Is it really worth all those billions of lives?" "No." She spoke cautiously. "That's unjustifiable." "But will the people of Xelass care? Will they topple the government after the war ends, or will they rejoice?" "They'll be happy." "Exactly. They will be thinking of themselves, and their families, and their futures. Does the death of all those strangers matter to someone fighting for all they hold dear?" She sighed. "It should." "Yeah. It should." They watched the monitor together. Those stars might be Xelassian in a hundred years. An empire, carved out amongst the celestial spheres, hugging the few blue dots that were habitable planets and occasionally passing rockets between them. It wasn't as romantic as the public wished. The ?'' sped onwards, uncaring, unstoppable. Chapter Seven "Wakey wakey. We're almost close enough to have a proper conversation now." Control's voice was just as annoying as before. "Fuck off." Irnos shut his eyes, wishing for the speaker to go away. "Thirty light-seconds. It won't be long. I wonder what your last thought will be- perhaps you could waste it on me. I'd be touched." "I said fuck off." "I think I'll do a countdown. That'll be fun. Perhaps you'll have a nervous breakdown halfway through and ruin all your muscles trying to get up. Even better, you could begin ranting hysterically so that I could record it and play it back later. The madder, the more listenable." Irnos sighed and slowly closed his fists. "Ten minutes. Use them well." Rena spoke. "What can we do in ten minutes under five gees, Irnos?" "I guess we could just sit back and watch the stars, uh... remain where they are in space, at least as far as we can see." "Uh-huh." They did sit back anyway, and were silent. The stars shone on. Everything was calm and tranquil. Soon, the speaker came again. "Five minutes till you hit the atmosphere. You'll go out with a bang!" Kranas was visible through the telescope, and so was Pheron. They appeared to hang a few inches or so away from the blue marble that was Aiston, motionless and peaceful. The shine of cities was just about visible on Aiston's night side and a single dot of light marked the location of the Kranas moonbase upon the moon's grey surface. The ''? powered on, getting closer and closer to Aiston- Irnos and Rena were still pinned down- the unsuspecting citizens of the CPR carried on, taking their last breaths and heartbeats, thinking their final thoughts- They were moments away from impact. A tear fell rapidly down Rena's cheek. "I was hoping I'd go out more peacefully than this." Irnos turned his head to look at her. "There's still so much I wanted to do. All the things I had to see, all the people I had to say goodbye to, all the fun I wanted to have, but the Republic just took them all away." He shuffled over slightly. "And Rena, I just wanted to say that I-" The left-hand wall of the cabin crumpled inwards, metal deforming under massive pressure. Air began to rush outwards, into space, towards the black cube that hung there and now reached into the rocket. Just as the ? hit the atmosphere, it shot away, diverting itself away from Aiston. Irnos' eyes were wide and terrified, and he saw Aiston looming up, and then the monitor feed went white. Chapter Eight It may have been night, but the city of Ursla buzzed with the sounds and lights of Zeth activity. People talked and laughed and played in the streets and in their houses. The air was alive with excitement, pleasure, ambition, sadness, and regret. Civilisation was continuing as it had done for countless years, but now it was very soon to end. Stars twinkled in the sky, and Alaya looked up at them, breathing out happily. Then, there was a light from above- it was received by her eyes, but it never had time to reach her brain. The nuclear salt water rocket smacked into the atmosphere, orders of magnitude too fast for the molecules to get out of its way. It became a lance of light and gamma rays, blasting all air around it away and producing a sheath of plasma over a hundred kilometres long, tunnelling through the sky. Around eighty kilometres up- higher than the lowest satellites- the stress was too great. It split up into pieces, but each was more than deadly enough- they hit the ground and all that kinetic energy converted over the course of microseconds into light, heat, ionising radiation, and an EMP. The light was bright enough to shine through people, trees, walls, and fortresses, sufficient to exert a pressure, as if trying to push them away. For that moment, there were no shadows, and everything was opaque white. Everything vaporised- buildings and trees left as lines of carbon in the air. Hundreds of millions died in that moment. Even outside the site of vaporisation, pavements steamed and houses liquefied. The EMP was powerful enough to kill any living thing in its path. It was followed by the airblast, which pressed everything into the ground as a flat layer, shoving hills back into the earth, forcing the dust still yet to reach the ground outwards at many times the speed of sound. The impact was enough to produce an earthquake that a seismometer could have registered as seven point five on the Richter scale, but no such detector survived. Ejecta- dust, rocks, ash- was blasted up into the sky, blotting out the night-time stars. At one hundred kilometres from the impact site, the thermal radiation took eleven milliseconds to arrive. The fireball seemed eighteen times larger than Cedris would have been, and instantly set all things that could burn aflame- trees, grass, soil- and burnt Zeth to the bone. The earthquake arrived seconds later, powerful enough to tear apart the already-damaged buildings, causing the streets to fill with rubble. Two minutes after, the ejecta began to fall, a fine dusting off dust and ash, over an inch thick, settling like snow. Occasional larger fragments fell, red-hot, steaming upon the ground. The air blast, reduced to 215 mph now, was last to arrive. No-one was left to hear it, would if they had it would have been sufficiently loud to make them clamp their hands to their ears in pain. One thousand kilometres away, the fireball was beneath the horizon. The tremors were just about detectable. Dust filled the sky, but settled too thinly to be visible. The airblast took fifty minutes to arrive, but it was loud- as loud as heavy traffic. The CPR was finished. Xelass had triumphed. Billions were dead. Epilogue Decelerating one gee. Course around system's central star. Ridding self of velocity necessary to reach spacecraft. The rocket not retrievable. Civilisations already using relativistic weapons. No further delays permissible. It held its precious cargo- a single female Zeth, asleep but alive, and began to head towards Aiston. Category:Articles by User:Holbenilord